


It's just hair

by IDsimmons



Series: In the Right Direction [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Jemma Simmons & Skye | Daisy Johnson Friendship, Jemma Simmons Needs a Hug, Panic Attacks, Protective Skye | Daisy Johnson, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 07:58:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19421773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IDsimmons/pseuds/IDsimmons
Summary: Jemma is at her breaking point right after Fitz dies. There is so much to do and she can't breathe. It's too much. Daisy finds her on the edge of losing her mind and tries her hardest to hold her together.





	It's just hair

Jemma angrily swipes at a stubborn stray hair, the greasy unwashed strands keep falling into her vision and getting in her way. They keep escaping from her ponytail and she doesn't have time to for this. Don't shower. He's gone. Don't sleep. He's gone. Don't eat. He's gone. Don't breathe. He's gone. Don't feel. He's gone. Don't stop. He's gone. He won't be back until she finds him and she won't find him if she wastes precious time on herself. She could feel the minutes around her, ticking past suffocating her and he wasn't here. Dead. The hair she just tucked behind her ear fell into her vision again and she let out a frustrated groan through her gritted teeth. Fine. She will fix this. She grabbed surgical scissors from her lab table and snipped at the hair distracting her from finding Fitz. There. Problem solved. She swiped the brown strands into the trash and set the scissors aside and focused back on the problem at hand.  
Jemma awoke to a mug of tea and a plate being set down next to her head on her desk. She felt Daisy's hand touch her arm and she reluctantly lifts her face from the cool surface. Something was tickling her nose and she had a paper stuck to her face.  
"Uh, Simmons. What happened to you last night?"

Jemma frowned and squinted at her friend,  
"Nothing unusual I guess I lost track of time and I must have fallen asleep here." Tilting her head at her friend's obvious uneasy amusement "Why?" It wasn't unusual for her to fall asleep in the lab, in fact, it was par for the course lately.

"Um," gesturing wildly to her own hair "Did you give Edward Scissorhands a whirl at your head or something?" Eyes wide, Jemma's hand flew to the shorn bits of random hair above her eyebrows. Chest rapidly heaving and eyes watering, she was losing her mind. She was breaking. Daisy quickly sees her friend about to spiral and pulls her into a hug. She feels the wetness falling against her neck and knows the dam of emotions Jemma was holding back was about to break. She wraps an arm around her and quickly leads her to the privacy of her bedroom. Daisy punches in her code and gets Jemma inside. Jemma enters the room, eyes unseeing, her movements jerky, frantically pacing, painfully sucking in air, and tears leaking unstoppable. Every part of her was tense and coiled with anxiety. She was losing her grip on herself and Daisy needed to ground her again. She grabbed Jemma and pulled her into a fierce hug, wishing that she could take some of this pain away, but she couldn't. She could be there, her friend was not alone in this. So she grabbed hold of her quaking friend and quaked back. She sent vibrations from herself to the woman shattered to pieces in front of her and tried to keep her together. For Jemma, she would never stop trying.  
"I can't promise you that it will all be ok. But I can promise you that you will have me every single step of the way and I will move galaxies to make sure you nerds are together again, got it? You are not alone. " Daisy's grip lessened but Jemma's tightened and then dropped. Daisy saw her shoulders shaking and her heart sank. She could handle broken Jemma, she could do this. Jemma's face lifted and her smile caught Daisy off guard. It was tight and wobbly but a smile nonetheless. Her laughter was a touch hysterical but she was going to be alright. Her hair, on the other hand, would not survive the grief of Fitz it would seem. Oh well, it's just hair. Jemma moved to examine the randomly cut bits of hair in Daisy's mirror and groaned. Daisy smirked behind her "Welcome to the club Simmons, you go through some shit and then you give yourself bangs. Usually most people do this as teenagers but since you were at Hogwarts solving World Peace you're a bit behind the rest of the class. You gotta be behind the curve at something, I suppose. "  
"Ugh, Daisy. How do I fix it?"  
"I totally got this." She sends a quick text to May for supplies "But first you're gonna have to shower because I love you and all but I'm not touching whatever is growing in your hair." Jemma threw a pillow in Daisy's direction which she unnecessarily quaked back sticking her tongue out and forcefully ushering Jemma to her connected bathroom. "A full 10 minute shower missy. Don't make me come in there"  
"Yes, ma'am" Jemma saluted with a playful eyeroll and a shaky breath. The tightness in her chest and the weight that felt like it was slowly crushing her to death was abating, for now. Daisy quickly ran into Jemma and Fitz's bunk to grab fresh clothes and waited for the supplies she texted May for. May knocked on the door one eyebrow raised but silent. "There was a minor situation but I got it"  
"Ok" May left with a ghost of a smile on her face and no questions asked.  
Daisy heard the shower turn off and knocked on the door. "Here. I got you clothes " Daisy shoved them through the cracked door and waited for her friend to come out bouncing on her toes, excited for her plan. Jemma came out clean in yoga pants and an old tshirt and saw Daisy in the same thing. Daisy saw the question on her face and smiled brightly. "We are having a girls night"  
"Daisy, I can't there's too much work to be done and Fitz…"  
"Fitz needs you to take care of yourself and no offense but you're fired. You need to eat and sleep and shower otherwise you are going to run yourself into the ground before we even get started. This is a marathon not a sprint. You need to be ready and running yourself ragged until you turn into Edward Scissorhands is not going to get you to Fitz so please, one night. Also, Fitz will be pissed and never let you or me hear the end of it if you show up to rescue him looking like the grim reaper." Daisy grabbed her hand hoped she was getting through.  
"Ok. One night."  
"Yes!" She let out a high pitch squeal she feels like she hasn't heard in years and smiled. She could turn off the part of herself constantly looking for Fitz for few hours, right? Panic seized her chest at that thought. Never stop looking. If you stop looking he will be gone forever. Daisy sees the shift in her smile and panic in her eyes and forcefully pulls her attention. "Hey. We will get right back to work first thing in the morning. We will find Fitz. I'd like to see the Universe try and stop the two of you and if it does, it's going to have to go through me. If I have to, I will quake every single person who gets in our way and personally escort his pasty Scottish ass all the way back to Earth and right back down the aisle. But for a few hours I'm going to give you bangs, you're going to give me purple hair we are going to eat popcorn, drink cheap wine and watch terrible movies with facemasks on. Got it?" Jemma nodded and sat down hugging the pillow she had previously thrown. Everything was too much. Daisy putting her back together when all she wanted to be was broken made what was left of her heart ache and swell simultaneously. Daisy sat on the floor and dumped out the contents of the bag and started sorting. Hair bleach, purple dye, scissors actually meant for cutting hair, a very large bottle of white wine, several sheet masks said to rejuvenate and relieve stress, and one Frozen dvd. Mission girls night was a go. Daisy grabbed the scissors and portioned off Jemma's hair.  
"Have you done this before?"  
"Yeah, it wasn't pretty when I did it to myself. It never is, but then one of my roommates went through a thing after her boyfriend broke up with her and came back with this weird fringe situation and asked me to fix it. I watched a bunch of videos and got decent at it, if I do say so myself. " She began cutting and soon enough, Jemma Simmons had bangs. There were a few pieces that were still too short from where Jemma had hacked away but overall it was a good, new look. Something maybe her friend needed. Daisy patted herself on the back.  
"Ok, science nerd. Time for some practical application. We have to bleach and then do the purple. Without my hair falling out preferably. " Daisy smiled and handed the bottles to her friend who looked excited at a simple problem and solution that she could solve without spinning in circles. Jemma started mixing the solutions with a gleam in her eye and Daisy was slightly worried. But it was just hair and her friend was happy for once, so whatever. She was obsessed with what Jemma came up with and it turns out that she was a little annoying prodigy at a lot of things. Daisy went and found May and Yoyo, May stared at her like she lost her damn mind, no Simmons was not going near her hair with chemicals but Yoyo was excited. Jemma gave Yoyo highlights while they watched Frozen. With everyone's hair finished they donned facemasks sang Let It Go and tried to throw popcorn in each other's mouth without the facemasks falling off. They were in fact rejuvenated and slightly stress relieved but the masks had very little to do with it. Operation girls night was a success.


End file.
